China’s growing influence is disrupting power relations worldwide, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Wednesday during a trip to Copenhagen.

“The global balance of power in shifting because China is becoming a bigger and stronger military power,” former Norwegian prime minister Stoltenberg said at a meeting with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen.

“China is getting closer to us. We see them in cyberspace, we see them in space, we see them in Africa and we see them in the Arctic. And we see how China is trying to control critical infrastructure here in Europe,” he added.All of this had security implications, Stoltenberg said.

In June, the 30-member alliance significantly hardened its collective stance on China, saying Beijing’s behaviour represented “systemic challenges to the rules-based international order.”

The trans-Atlantic defence alliance’s traditional adversary is Russia, but US President Joe Biden pushed hard to have NATO allies eye Beijing more closely.

Stoltenberg reiterated on Wednesday that relations with Moscow were at a low point, saying things hadn’t been this hard since the end of the Cold War.